WYC Wednesday Night Race - A nice fall evening

This race started in 3 knots of air with the port tack favored going to dp8. I decided to start on the middle of the line since I thought it was important that we had good boat speed with the light air. The other J120s fought for the pin end and even though it was favored I knew there would be problems if we had do a lot of maneuvering before the start. After the gun we seemed to do well against the other J120s. Hot Ticket came down to our line behind us. Just as fast they got a lift we did not get and got even to us to windward. Down by the mark I tacked to starboard before HT did. Since were a little behind I thought that the current would push us down and may get a small lift. We did manage to round on the inside of HT and got our spinnaker up quickly. Farther down the leg Merlin who was in first went high on the reach leg to get around the other boats where I decided to go low because it seemed that the fleet in front of us was also going high. In any case Merlin rounded far in front of us and HT got in on the inside. The next leg was a close reach. We rounded the next mark and tried to get to weather as close as possible. HT got behind a J105 and was force to tack to starboard. I thought this was perfect for us since we could get downriver faster. On the next crossing we were in front of Ticket and the rest of race we just covered her to hold our lead. I thought this was well sailed race. The worst mistake I made was to no recognize that there was more wind pressure on the left side of the course on the first leg. This allowed Merlin to get in ahead of us.

Result: 2nd out of 5 J120s
Link: http://www.wyc.info/2007-regatta/WYC%202007%20Fall%20Race%204.pdf

COURSE 3 - 6.3 nautical miles
Start to DP8 (243o) leaving it to port
-then to A (091o) leaving it to port
-then to CC (291o) leaving it to port
-then to DP7 (251o) leaving it to starboard
-then to finish leaving DP5 to starboard.